It was billed as Britain's first "easyCouncil", a flagship for the government's town hall spending cuts and a model of no-frills prudence. But it has emerged that the London borough of Barnet is spending more trying to find efficiencies than it is actually saving.

Maybe this cost-reduction business isn't going to be as straightforward as Tory local government trailblazers claim. Hammersmith and Fulham leader Stephen Greenhalgh recently said that "out of every £3 spent, £1 is spent deciding what to do with the other two", but will his borough's three-way merger with K&C and Westminster really generate efficiencies? Writing in the Standard, Simon Jenkins is unconvinced:

When the Communities and Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, eulogises that "by sharing back office services the councils will be able to protect the front-line and even improve the choice and services on offer", I wondered if he has ever heard of the NHS. While I can see that employing the same refuse collection firm or the same tax-collecting staff should save something, the truth is that size is rarely an economy.

He adds:

London is seeing what centralists such as [Ken] Livingstone long wanted: that is, a handful of merged metropolitan sub-regions to boss about.

He's right that Ken believes there should be fewer and larger boroughs, but the really big issue is how to increase localist devolution (good) while preventing the entrenchment of narrow, nimbyist parochialism (bad).

Go on, chew that over. For further insights into the majesty of easyBarnet, check out the Top London Blog that is Barnet Eye.